PostSingular #2 Last Blog!

I really was happy with the ending of this book. It was one of those books where a sad ending would just make the book crappy. I am so happy that the Nants did not take over earth and they were able to live in a better world. Also I really found the second half of the book to be very catchy, and quite funny. I think after you know the characters and you start seeing the world they live in and who they are and what they are doing you get attached. I think that the author did a great job at getting the reader attached from the beginning by pulling at the heart strings when Jeffs best friend died. Then he gets us emotional with Chu when he gets sucked into the virtual earth. Then we learn about the four “bum” kids who are going from place to place, known as rebels, yet they are smart enough to save the world. I found the book brought in some really interesting ideas, and what I thought was hilarious was how much the author seemed to hate dogs. It kept making dogs seem to be these evil, dirty animals. I love dogs so I caught on to this very fast and laughed to myself thinking Rudy Rucker must be a cat person. But besides that I found the transportation from world to world to be very interesting. I thought I was great that Thuy was able to figure so much out and was brave and went and saved that harp. I think that it was very relatable to girls when she got sucked into the Nubees world because she got her pigtails eaten and her favorite shoes. That made me laugh as well that the author felt it important to take away a girls hair and shoes. I still saw the world as a place where I would never want to live or have that happen to us though because they had no privacy what so ever. I mean I would hate to think that there are people that could watch my every move, and my secret life. I mean I thought Chu made a good point when he was saying, why can’t we say everything we are thinking since we can read each others minds. I thought along with him, what is the point of clothes if you can see what is beneath them? There are no secrets. One thing I did find odd was the way the author described Christians/Right wing conservatives in the book. First of all they assumed that everyone that was a Right Wing believed in Christianity. Secondly they assumed that the right wings were all for the Nants taking over the world because they were ready to go to heaven, but I thought that they weren’t really dying when they were being transformed into virtual world? I wasn’t quite sure I understood that. So wouldn’t the Right Wing conservatives be against it? Wouldn’t they want to be on an earth where they can die so they can go to heaven? I just thought that Rudy Rucker may have had the facts wrong on that part. Just thought I should give my voice on that part since I mentioned that I liked that Rudy Rucker mentioned something else about God earlier in the book. I wasn’t quite sure I could grasp Rudy Rucker and his stance on Christianity. It seemed to be used in other places, where I am not sure if others would pick up on it, but it was subtle and hinted towards Biblical relations. The second to last paragraph of the book is an example, talking about how they got a new start, like settling down from a flood and starting over. I thought that this really tied in with Noah’s Ark story. Maybe I am wrong and the author didn’t mean for me to see that. Also what I liked about the book was it was kind of a love story…in a different form. I mean you could tell that JayJay really liked Thuy and she really liked him. There were other love affairs going on in the book but that one was the big one and how they knew that life with anyone else would not be as great as life with each other. That made me happy that they were able to be together happily ever after. I don’t remember hearing if Sonic ended up living or not. I do feel like they should have said that he was alive, because he was helpful in getting rid of Jeff Luty, or did he die when he jumped through the transporter? I guess maybe I missed something there? All in all I really liked this book.

PostSingular & Class discussions!

I have been so interested in Postsingular and am excited to finish the last two parts of it! I think its so interesting how far their world has advanced and the orphidnet they are using. I think it is interesting because a few of the class discussions we have said like "what ifs" and now in this book these things are coming true. We talked about how we can imagine what a person looks like completely if we have different images compiled together to create that person. Even though this book doesn’t quite do that the orphidnet hides no secrets about anyone. Everyone's lives are invaded and can be found and shown to everyone. It also sucks in my opinion that they don't really have a choice whether they want to go on the orphidnet or not because some people do want to keep their secrets and lives personal. I really enjoyed how a lot of the first part was setting up the whole story and helping us to get to know the main characters and what exactly is going on.
I think in class the other day it was interesting that some people believed that communication with others through the technology that we have is not as personable or relational than person to person conversations or contact. I find this to be very untrue, but there are a few things about the technology in Postsingular that might ruin the person-to-person conversations. What I mean is, with how far we have come in our world with laptops and cell phones and ways to communicate with others it has helped long distance relationships with friends, family or loved ones. It has also helped get important messages or information out to a large number of people quickly. I think it is unfair to say that technology would ruin a relationship or make a relationship worse than contact to contact. Wouldn't a relationship with some contact be better than no contact? So the relationships that communicate with the help of technology is better than deciding not to contact someone because you don't like talking on the phone or writing emails? I thought it was very unfair to say that. But when looking at the book Postsingular they have brought in an even newer form of contact with others. They send messages to each other without saying anything to a person that might be in the room. Its like aim in a way. So they are mixing the two forms of communication together. Would this make the relationship better or worse? They are hiding it from the other people in the room, so it’s more private, but does it take away from the conversation being personal? I think it would be hard to judge because some communication is better than no communication, no matter which way you do it. I am not sure if this is making sense, but I am trying to basically say that communication is important in any relationship you have. I think it is an unfair statement to say that communication is less valuable if it is used through technology. And even though for Postsingular their technology is even more advanced and may take away from a normal conversation, I still think it is more valuable to communicate in the way you are comfortable rather than not at all.
Moving away from that topic, while reading I was noticing the relation of this book to the other books we have read. One of the things I noticed in a lot of the books we read they have predicted that we will be able to stick gills in our neck and breathe under water. Which I think is a very funny thing to imagine. I haven’t quite grasped that idea myself, but that seems to be a common advancement in a lot of the books. That was just something I picked up on and thought was interesting.
Another thing about Postsingular is in ways it almost seems as if times have changed where women are once again not in power, and the men are in control. The women have become dependent and needy. I may be wrong, but it does seem to be that time repeats itself so maybe more women were not enjoying the workplace and decided to go back to the homes. Even though this was a change it was also obvious that there were more norms put into place that we are working to change for us right now. Such as it seemed like a norm is that technological advances are happening very fast. Also porn is becoming accessible through the orphidnets very easily. The gay/lesbian issue we have today feels as if it is not an issue in the book but rather very accepted. Finally the last thing I noticed was how it almost seemed as if drugs were easy to access and they were uncontrollable. Yes a lot of these things are happening today, but it seems as if they are even more in touch with them in the book.
One last thing I found really interesting is that Jil talked about God. I loved that even though it was a short little thing about it they made a point to tell people that God. Is. Love. I was reading it and I was like what a great thing to put in a book about God because so many people I think are afraid of Christianity and think that we are all about sinning, and things that people do wrong, but in reality its all about love, and God’s love for us and how we can love God. I wish that that were more of the focus when people heard of Christianity. I think that the guy out in Red Square who yells at people goes about it in a terrible way, he should be telling people of God’s love, and not about how they are sinning….for a true Christian would know we are all sinners, no one is perfect but that doesn’t matter because God loves us anyways! Just thought I should add that little bit. Seems to be that our classes somehow always get on the topic of Christianity, yet never really give it a chance before there is a joke. Any other religion that someone would joke about all hell would break loose.